Matt Blairstone
AGONY'S LODESTONE OUT NOW

**SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED** Your Body is Not Your Body: A New Weird Horror Anthology to benefit Trans youth in Texas

***SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU!***

Extreme conditions demand extreme responses. This is perhaps not the most well-organized submissions call, but when has pragmatism ever stopped us? This one comes from the guts; we’ll figure out the rest as we go along.

We are now accepting submissions for Your Body is Not Your Body: A New Weird Horror Anthology to combat Texas’ attempts to criminalize Trans youth. All proceeds from the sale of this anthology will go directly to Equality Texas (https://www.equalitytexas.org/).

Defying Tenebrous’ standard operating procedure: creators will not be paid for their participation.

***EDIT 02.24.22***: a multitude of generous Horror fans have begun contributing to a creator compensation fund, so this project WILL NOW be paying all accepted creators; we don’t want to speculate as to the amount, but it will be something.

If you are interested in contributing to this creator compensation fund, donate here.

Alright, so what do we want?

*4,000 words maximum (no minimum)

*Reprints are acceptable, but we need to know the original place of publication. No more than two submissions per creator, please.

*Genre: New Weird Horror. What that means to us: the immediacy of classic Pulp Horror with a deeper dive into the human condition and an (un)healthy injection of Surrealism. We love Magical Realism, Body Horror, Optimistic Nihilism, Folk Horror, genre splicing of all stripes. Needless to say: feel free to let your political rage and righteous anger runneth fucking over. Today is a day for Big Weird Sledgehammers, not subtlety (though we love quiet Weird Horror too!)

*Trans and Gender Non-Conforming creators only, please. Alex and I are grateful beyond words that so many folks are standing up as allies alongside us, but for this project it is critical that we allow those with the most at risk to have the microphone. Full stop.

*SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE IN ONE WEEK: THE LAST CLOCK IN THE WORLD ON THURSDAY, MARCH 3rd, 2022. Not a lot of time, I know, but y’all are great under pressure with the right motivation; I have faith.

VISUAL ARTISTS/ILLUSTRATORS: a metric fuckton of you have been reaching out to offer your services. Here are the deets.

Alright, I wrote all that in ten (fourteen & counting!) minutes and I know I left a bunch of shit out. I’m sure there will be addendums, so check back sometime later in the week. 

Thanks y’all,

Matt & Alex

ONE HAND TO HOLD, ONE HAND TO CARVE out April 1st

illustration by Echo Echo; cover design by Matt Blairstone

This April, Tenebrous Press releases its first novella of 2022! We wanted something that really embodies our aesthetic of New Weird Horror for our maiden voyage, and boy howdy do I think we nailed it.

About One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve:

Two halves of a human cadaver awaken on a cold morgue slab. The two distinct personalities, Left and Right, remember nothing of their previous life as a singular body. Bound by necessity to carve out an existence on the fringes of society, the two brothers have very different ideas of the life they want. Their impending schism will lead each on his own frightening path; one forward to a new life, one backward to the origin of their struggle. 

One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve is a Weird and surreal Body Horror journey that redefines familial bonds and what it means to be an individual.

About the Author:

M. Shaw is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop (class of 2019) and an organizer of the Denver Mercury Poetry Slam. They live in Arvada, Colorado. Whatever you're reading, they probably wrote it in an empty art museum after midnight.

Featuring cover art and interior illustrations by Echo Echo.

Preorder information for One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve coming soon. Sign up here to receive updates from Tenebrous Press!

Announcing the New Weird Horror Awards & The Best of New Weird Horror Vol. 1

The "New Weird Horror Award" & Best of New Weird Horror: Volume One Anthology

*FOR PUBLISHED WORKS ONLY*

The most exciting time for a genre is when it's defined or redefined, the scope of its themes taking shape before our eyes at the hands of those who engage with it. And that time, for New Weird Horror, is now.

Tenebrous Press presents the inaugural New Weird Horror Awards—to reward and further this unique blend of genres—and its accompanying Best of New Weird Horror anthology series, showcasing the winners of each year, care of editor Alex Woodroe.

We define New Weird Horror as a Horror subgenre focused on progress, creatively capturing themes and questions that bleed into fiction straight from the modern reader's life and future. It acts as a challenge to break new ground in terms of form and content and to engage with the unknown. Beyond that, New Weird Horror will be defined by the winning pieces themselves.

Does this sound like your writing? Submit your previously published work to the New Weird Horror Awards today!

Disclaimer:

Tenebrous is a young press looking to have fun in the world of Horror and build a community of like-minded peers. We don’t claim this award will wow your dream agent or single-handedly sell your book. It’s a way to showcase reprints that we love in a genre that we care about, and get them into the hands of more readers—no fuss, no lobbying, no hidden costs. 

Eligibility: 

Any piece of short fiction under 15,000 words originally published in the English language within the eligibility period.

You may submit NARRATIVE poems only; poems will be judged on their storytelling.

Stories published in other languages are welcome if there is an English translation available.

Reprints of stories originally published before the eligibility period are not eligible.

Any work published through Tenebrous Press, or edited by Alex Woodroe or Matt Blairstone, is not eligible. We already think you're awesome, regardless.

If you are unsure of the genre of your story, as long as it’s dark, speculative, and eligible, send it in. 

 

Eligibility period: 

Works published between the 1st of November 2021 and the 31st of October 2022 will be considered for Best of New Weird Horror: Volume 1.

Simply: If it's published before Halloween, it competes for this year's award. If it's published after Halloween, it competes for next year's award.

Final submission deadline for this year's award: October 31st, 2022. Send ARCS if necessary to get the submission in on time.

 

Response: 

We will not send out rejections for this project. Rather, if we want to feature your story, we will reach out to you. There will be a published shortlist, and the shortlisted works that don’t end up being featured will still be mentioned and advertised in the anthology. Final decisions made before the end of calendar year 2022.

 

How to submit: 

Submissions will open in 2022. Submit whole books or individual works. Electronic submissions only. Submit your work via our handy form—TO BE RELEASED AT THE START OF 2022. Please be sure to correctly fill in the name of the publisher (if applicable), editor (if applicable), and venue where the work was originally published.

Authors: Be sure your contract stipulates you are allowed to participate in Best Of anthologies, or ask permission from your publisher BEFORE submitting. 

Publishers/editors: Be sure your authors give you permission to submit their work before submitting.

Selected authors will be asked to sign a contract allowing their reprint to be featured. 

Other rules: 

You may speak about this award, submitting to this award, and being shortlisted for this award, in any way you like. 

You may have multiple submissions of the same author/publisher.

Questions? Did we miss anything? Drop us a line!